


Strangers in the Night

by Tyrelingkitten



Category: EXO (Band), Super Junior-M, f(x)
Genre: Aideshou Challenge, Alternate Universe, Challenge Response, Friendship, Gen, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:44:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyrelingkitten/pseuds/Tyrelingkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kris is in love with Amber. But he has to give her up to Henry Lau, his best friend. On the day of their engagement, he avoids them by going to the bar and meets Yixing.</p><p>AU, friendship focus.</p><p>For the aideshou challenge prompt, using picture prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers in the Night

 

 

[ ](http://tyreling.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/582/98484)

  


 

_When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.  
Helen Keller_

  
  
  
  
  
He stared at the credit card, numbers blurring in front of his eyes, wondering if he should have stayed home to ignore the world outside his windows and doors. Wu Fan did not see himself ever becoming a hermit. But sometimes, he just felt like it was time to close his eyes and sink into oblivion, drawing the blinds to keep reality out. Even for one day. God, why were his eyes stinging? He did not have time to be worrying about his apparent eye problems.  
  
“Sir?” The barmaid prompted, her hand already hovering near to accept his credit card. Her low voice jerked him back to reality and he quickly tried to recover from staring stupidly into space.  
  
“Sorry, got something in my eye,” He gave her his most convincing smile, swiping the corners of his eyes with his thumb to clear the leaking as he stuffed the credit card back into his pocket, avoiding to look her in the eyes. “I’ve some change… somewhere.” He made a show of checking his clothes for forgotten bills, turning his pockets inside out. The contents of his pockets immediately fell; unused tissue paper, the small celebration card, some coffee candies and loose crumpled bills. He bit back a curse and leaned down on the next barstool to grab his fallen possessions. Before he could count the bills on the bar counter, a pale thin hand slipped a five thousand won bill over to the barmaid.  
  
“Here. It’s on me. Can you get me your Yuja hwachae, please?” Someone interrupted. Clear tenor. Unfamiliar voice. Politeness oozing out of every word. And really, a fruit punch instead of alcohol?  
  
“Thank you. Just a moment, please.” The barmaid flashed a perfect costumer service smile before moving to the cooler on her right to grab the fruity ingredients.  
  
  
Wu Fan turned to look at the Samaritan paying for his drink with narrowed eyes that he almost forgot about his manners. Mumbling a short thank you, Wu Fan dipped his head for a half-bow. At first Wu Fan did not recognize the man underneath the sleek hair fringe combed to the right, until said man gave him a small smile. Dimples indented both sides of those cheeks. Wu Fan tried his best not to jerk back in his seat when he could finally put a name to that face. Zhang Yixing. One of the chosen groomsmen for Henry’s soon-to-be wedding. Apparently, he was also some kind of distant relative on Henry’s side of the family.  
  
“Hi, you were also at Amber and Henry’s engagement party, right? I saw you talking in the backroom before the official announcement. My name is Lay. As in, the chips variety. Apparently the girls thought my face looked edible.”  
  
Right. Nickname. For whatever reason, the bridesmaids had subtly revealed some of their upcoming plans for the groomsmen by giving them some random nicknames.  
  
“Kris,” Wu Fan nodded again. Cannibalism references aside, Wu Fan received ‘Kris’ instead, courtesy of Amber wanting to play along. She thought it sounded cooler, being closely related to ‘Chris’ and ‘dangerous as a dagger’. That last part was a mystery to him.  
  
“You didn’t come to the meeting.” Yixing ‘Lay’ said conversationally. “Henry was worried.”  
  
“Was thirsty.” Wu Fan said and raised his glass of lager beer to explain everything.  
  
“So you’re here instead of raiding Henry’s fridge instead?  
  
Wu Fan shrugged. ”Henry doesn’t drink.“  
  
Yixing gave him a look that spoke of disbelief. Wu Fan was not too sure though. Yixing always seemed to have the same pleasant, calm expression going on despite the side eyeing he was showing.  
  
“Right."  
  
  
Wu Fan drank his bear just to avoid explaining his actual reason for being there.     
  
  
"Want me to fill you in on the wedding schedule?”  
  
“Go ahead.” Despite giving Yixing the heads up to continue, Wu Fan tuned out Yixing’s voice as soon as the other opened his mouth to explain the details. Wu Fan preferred spending this night with only the beer as his companion and the bar as his new sanctuary. Sitting next to a stranger talking about someone else’s wedding was not the best conversation; especially when said wedding involved the love of his life and the friend he wanted to disown.  
  
As Wu Fan sipped his beer, his eyes followed the barmaid’s movements, studying her uniform, the white name card reading ‘Jessica’, her body, her smooth long legs, before finally lingering to the way her hands were mixing various liquids and fruits. She had lovely hands, slender and smooth.  
  
  
  
Amber had lovely hands too; small delicate-looking hands with long, slender fingers, faint calluses decorating the pads of her fingertips and a faint scar across the back of her right hand—an accident with a penknife. Henry also had lovely hands; strong, rough but well-cared, calluses were visible across his fingers, the heels of his palms, due to him being a popular mainstream violinist in town. Idly, Wu Fan dropped his eyes to study his own hands resting on the counter, the bony knobs of fingers, the creases of skin around his knuckles and the lines deeply etched in the inside of his palms. Ugly big, he thought self-depreciatingly, like a gorilla. Of course with big hands like his, Amber’s own would fit right in and disappear into his. But then again, her hands also fit into Henry’s own in a more princely fashion—like a glove.  
  
Jessica checked her wristwatch and leaned over the small cooler to turn on the small radio sitting on the lowest shelf, next to a Rémy Martin bottle. The sultry whisk of a saxophone sneaked out of the speaker boxes into the silent bar, followed closely by the one-note riffs of a guitar answering in slow descent as the piano joined in the background with a playful dilly-dallying rhythm. The music suddenly changed the silent, business mood of the bar into a nostalgic romance with jazz blues. A husky woman’s voice belted out a song in a language Wu Fan’s mind identified as ‘maybe Japanese’.  
  
He nearly forgot about Zhang Yixing sitting next to him until Jessica stepped closer to pass a colorful glass with an equally colorful mix of content to Yixing. Wu Fan’s eyes followed her hands during the exchange and absently trailed to study Yixing’s hands. Slender wrist, small hands. Faint ink smudges on the heel of his hand, covering the pinky and the index finger and the thumb. Someone who used a pen a lot. A writer? An old-school accountant? Student?  
  
Yixing’s left hand followed the rhythm of the overall music with one second pause, slowly drumming on the bar counter as if he was playing an instrument. Amber loved to do that as well, treating any flat surface as her own personal drum set while she hummed any tune that was stuck in her mind at that moment. Henry picked up the habit along the way, with the excuse of learning to play his piano in Cantabile—whatever that meant.  
  
It suddenly felt difficult to breathe properly, a lump managed to lodge itself in his throat, his heart throbbed irregularly against his chest—Wu Fan grimaced as he rubbed his chest, hoping that the simulated massage would ease the passageway to his lungs and calm his heartbeat. Not a heart attack, he thought. He found himself staring at the brandy on the shelves of the bar. Orange, brown, red, some mixed color between red and brown decided to do some fusion dance. He was hyperventilating, how pathetic. He shut his eyes and willed himself to calm down listening to the jazz in the background.  
  
  
  
Colors swooped and swirled behind his closed eyelids as the music soared, taking him back to the day Amber and Henry had told him about them being together.  
  
 _“Officially together,” Henry said shyly, “We’re dating for three weeks by now, you know?”_  
  
“Yeah, just fooling around,” Amber’s cheeks looked strangely flushed, “And then, this idiot thought it was better to make it real. So I accepted.”  
  
“And now we’re serious,” Henry said with a wide grin.  
  
Amber had looked very happy, sharing in-jokes with Henry when they started talking about stupid things, little things that made them see each other in a whole different light. Made them fall in love with each other even harder.  
  
He had only given them one of his plastic smiles as he congratulated them, patted on Henry’s back and ruffled Amber’s short hair. His mouth was running off with useless encouragement, vomiting his approval and then he treated them to ice cream. Fast forward one year later, Henry had asked Amber to marry him. Wu Fan could only watch as Amber agreed with a loud whoop and a bear hug.  
  
  
  
  
“Hey, hey, breathe, breathe, take a deep breath.” Yixing’s voice was so close, too close to his ear, pulling Wu Fan out of his thoughts. He concentrated on breathing, the rhythm of his heartbeat and the pounding in his head. The radio was playing some swingy, upbeat jazz. There was a small hand on his back, stroking soothingly over his spine. A stranger’s hand. Yixing’s hand. The other man was leaning close, looking both thoughtful and concerned. “I think it’s best you stop drinking for tonight”  
  
Wu Fan felt too miserable to protest, _his glass was only half empty!_  
  
He pushed himself off the bar stool, dislodging himself from Yixing’s hands.  
  
“Thanks for paying for my drink. I’ll repay you tomorrow.” Or something close to that part. His mouth felt like cotton had colonized it during his dawdling in the past.  
  
“You sure you can walk back in your state?” Yixing raised his eyebrows at him.  
  
“I’m not drunk.” Although the way Yixing was eyeing him, it felt as if the other was not referring to his drinking at all.  
  
“Night,” Wu Fan muttered, raising a casual hand for a wave as he turned on his heels.  
  
“Wait!” Yixing slid off the bar stool and stepped in front of Wu Fan, holding out a business card between his fingers. Wu Fan automatically accepted the card and read the embossed characters:  
 __ **Zhang Yi Xing**  
Korea National University of Arts  
 **Department of Composition**  
 **Phone extension:** xxxx  
 **E-mail address:** zhangyixing@karts.ac.kr  
  
In the right corner, there was a phone number scribbled.  
  
“Call me.” Yixing said simply.  
  
  
Wu Fan had all but run from those knowing eyes. It’s only when he was pressed up against the cool wall of the elevator did Wu Fan realize he had not given his business card in exchange for Yixing’s own—a common courtesy in his line of business. He shrugged off the guilt and rested his head against the cool surface of the wall.  
  
  
  
Once he was safe in his room, Wu Fan made a beeline to the bathroom, his stomach recoiling uncomfortably with the mix of beer he had consumed. His hip accidentally pushed something off the cupboard along the way and the sound of glass breaking tore through the silent room like a wake-up call to his muddled mind. He turned to stare at the broken item—a photo frame. The picture had slipped out, revealing Wu Fan grinning along with his arms around Amber and Henry’s shoulders. A knife gutted him inside out.  
  
He knelt on the floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass and then the picture. Why did it have to be this one that broke?  
  
  
  
\-----  
  
  
  
Wu Fan had wanted to spend his day in a daze, locked up in his room, under the blankets, and just sleep. Reality was not that easy to ignore. He threw himself in his work, finishing all his assignments in a record of time until he was seeing double and tears continued to bleed out of the corners. He spent most of his days in the office, freshening up in the lavatory and only went home to get a change of clothes or to take a restless nap, curled up in the living-room sofa.  
  
Yixing’s card was burning a hole in his pocket as the days went by, demanding his attention. He tried his best to forget its existence; a temporary distraction from his miserable life, an embarrassing step that threatened his manliness. He even convinced himself that he had thrown it into the shredder and thrashed it in the waste basket next to the machine.  
  
Wu Fan had not expected himself to consider making small chitchat with Yixing. They did not know each other past the polite greetings of “Hello, how was your day?” They weren’t exactly friends either. Just mutual acquaintances met through a festive event. But with the wedding right around the corner, he was suddenly the man everyone went to when something related to the wedding came up. After a week of constant hounding through the phone lines, Wu Fan finally lost it, breaking under the pressure.  
  
Thumbing Yixing’s number in his mind was easier done than actually doing it. After five nervous tries, he sucked in his breath and waited for some unexpected blow to hit him. Like maybe some mocking laughter to greet him.  
  
  
“Hello?” Yixing’s distracted voice came after the fourth ring.  
  
“It’s me… Kris.” Wu Fan said, after a long pause.  
  
“Kris? Who-oh! _Oh!_ ” Yixing said,”Sorry, I—this is embarrassing, but I… have no idea who you are. I’m bad with names.”  
  
Wu Fan felt like an idiot and hit his head on the desk. It felt as if someone had pulled the rug from underneath his feet. “Never mind. Sorry for bothering you.” Calling Zhang Yixing was a mistake.  
  
“No! No, wait! Don’t hang up. Since you’ve this number then there’s something you want to discuss with me, right? Okay, I’m listening.”  
  
“Forget it. I don’t even know why I even bother.”  
  
“Me neither. This is my problem phone number. I usually give them to people who need a listening ear. So in conclusion, you probably want to rant.”  
  
“I thought you were a teacher. You’re a part-time therapist also?”  
  
Yixing laughed on the other side of the line. “Maybe close? I’m also part of the student evaluation council, by the way. I get to hear all kinds of student complaints. Enough about me, Kris—I take it that’s not your real name.“  
  
  
“Does Lay sound familiar then?”  
  
“Ah~ the Lau wedding. Now I remember.” There was the sound of rustling and a door closing in the background. “How are you faring?”  
  
  
“Is that what people call it these days? Faring better or worse?”  
  
“Just answer the question.”  
  
“I don’t have to.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“It’s none of your business.”  
  
“Indeed it’s not. But you called me, so by default it’s my business. Yet it’s not.”  
  
“Do you have any idea how you sound like?”  
  
“Yes. A smooth talker. Is it working?”  
  
Wu Fan huffed, biting back a chuckle. _This brat…_  
  
“… fine, I guess,“ Wu Fan trailed off to stare at the white expanse between two paintings in his office. Conversation with Yixing flowed strangely from there on. He touched neutral topics such as, last week’s basketball competition, recent music playing on loop in his iPod, childhood house pets and the stars signs in the sky and graduation concerts in the making.  
  
“I heard you’re now the official problem solver everyone should call.” Yixing commented randomly after a discussion about the sport channel they were both watching at the same time. Wu Fan almost flinched from the phone.  
  
“…who told you that?”  
  
“It was forwarded last week, I think. I’ve only read the mail today.”  
  
“It’s no wonder I’m getting all kinds of phone calls these days.”  
  
“I guess Henry and Amber trust you enough to keep everything smooth sailing for them.”  
  
“If you say one thing about the tie scheme again, I’ll personally come over there and strangle you with one of them.”  
  
“Heard that a lot, huh?” Wu Fan could practically hear the grin through the phone.  
  
“Yes! Do you know how annoying it is to argue with the others about the color scheme? They all assume I’m the one who bought these just to make fun of them. Why does everyone think I’ve decided on everything going on?”  
  
“Hmmm, you have that taking charge kinda face.”  
  
“Does that even exist?”  
  
“Of course, just look at the mirror and tell me what you see.”  
  
“Right now?”  
  
“Yes. Preferably. If you’re narcissistic.”  
  
“You’re pushing it.”  
  
“Okay, maybe some-,” Yixing stopped talking when a bell started ringing rather loudly in the background. “Oh, that’s my call. Lunch hour is over. Ugh, I haven’t even started yet.”    
Yixing let out a mournful sigh. “I’ll talk to you some other time, Kris. I’ve classes today.”  
  
“Wu Fan.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My name is Wu Fan.”  
  
“Oh! Okay, bye, Wu Fan. It's nice talking to you”  
  
“… bye.”  
  
  
  
\--------  
  
  
  
That was three weeks ago, before the important date—the wedding. After that there was no casual phone conversation to speak of. Sometimes Wu Fan found himself scrolling through his phone list and pausing on Yixing’s name, wondering if he should call the other man, if he should send him a message. But then he closed the phone book and shrugged it off as something to do on another day, whenever he felt like it.  
  
  
For more than a month Wu Fan had prepared his mind and his heart for _The Day Amber and Henry Will Unite_. He had built a fortress of indifference, maintained it with a pinch of cynic and decorated it with confidence in himself. Everything was going to be fine. As long as he shut his eyes and looked the other way. Except, nothing went according to plans. Everyone and everybody went a bit nuts.    
  
  
The sky started pouring, making it hard to light up the firecrackers. There were not enough umbrellas to shield the bridesmaids so they stayed in the cars, moping at the rain. A few of the groomsmen could not make it at the last minute because of traffic jam, Yixing included. Henry started hyperventilating halfway throughout the official ceremony. The freelance photographer took very few group pictures, much to the united families’ chagrin. And the ties—Wu Fan hated the ties the most. But still, despite everything, Amber had looked happy, had beamed angelically at Henry, telling him to calm down, that everything was going to be all right. It stopped raining after the newlyweds had signed their wedding certificate. And sure enough, things started moving smoothly from then on.  
  
This wasn't where Wu Fan wanted to be; supporting Henry on this day, watching Amber smiling in the arms of another man, and watching everyone approve of their relationship.  
  
Yixing managed to make it in the first half of the reception. He took lots of pictures with the newlyweds and greeted families, relatives and acquaintances enthusiastically, until he finally spotted Wu Fan lounging near the champagne table. Yixing beamed at him and made his way towards Wu Fan’s table.    
  
“Hey, how much did I miss?” was the first thing Yixing said as he pulled out the chair from underneath the table and sat down next to Wu Fan.  
  
“Not much.”  
  
“You don’t look too good.”  
  
Wu Fan raised his eyebrows at Yixing before turning his attention to the newlyweds up front. “I’m fine.” He muttered.  
  
  
“Good. I’ll treat you to drinks after this.”  
  
  
  
Yixing had not, though. Treated him to anything, that is. Yixing had forgotten to bring his wallet in his haste to make it to the wedding. His pockets were only filled with napkins. In the end, Wu Fan got stuck with the impressive bill.  
  
  
  
“I’m never going out with you again.” He all but snarled at Yixing as they walked out of the bar, side by side, slightly dazed, slightly tired, slightly drunk and very poor than last time. And the answer he received was a peel of laughter coming out of Yixing’s mouth, one that lasted throughout the night and tickled the air.  


**Author's Note:**

> Omfg I almost killed my brain. I couldn’t figure out a lot of things like the setting, the interaction because basically I just wanted to write something… enlightening. So enter the random jazz part. It was also a bit longer than I intended.
> 
> And yeah, the title is from Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the night”. I was just randomly youtube’ing around for jazzy mood music and somehow this one popped up. The title fit? But the lyrics… did not. XDDD;;;
> 
> /ded
> 
> Disclaimer: Don't own any of these people. No blasphemy intended. These are real people's names, but of course nothing of these little stories resemble reality.


End file.
